You Rock Like Escape The Fate

---$$$---

He looked up at me and smiled. His arms engulfed me in a huge hug and I returned it gladly, smiling into his sleeveless red shirt. His voice began to hum in my ear and I giggled at him for being all cheesy and humming the tune to a mushy love song.

Out of nowhere, it began to rain, and thunder boomed all around us. He looked at me, and both of our faces dropped as we heard a maniacal cackle from our side. A man I couldn’t see the face of was standing there, aiming a gun at us. He cocked the gun as the guy holding me whispered our three favorite words in my ear, panic clear in his voice.

“I-I love youu,”

bang.

“NO!!!” I screamed, dropping to my knees at his side. The gunman disappeared into thin air as I cried over my loved one’s body, his blood covering my hands. Not him… not him… not him… not him... not him… not him…

---$$$---

My scream awoke me, my body in a cold sweat and my breathing heavy. Oh my lord, do I hate nightmares… it was odd that I could remember every detail, usually I forget my dreams. But there were two details that kept nagging at me; one, I didn’t know who the shooter was, and two, I didn’t know who the… guy I loved was… There was one thing I knew for sure, this was the first nightmare I had had since we moved into this cabin that wasn’t about Nate…

Who was the guy in my dream? Oh god, not another thing to annoy me in my head all day.

I heard the familiar creaking of the wooden stairway, indicating someone was heading down. I knew who it was, and it made me smile. Wait, what?! okay so that was weird… Every morning since we discovered Bryan’s burn, he would get up around sunrise and go down to the kitchen, then make some coffee and get out the first aid kit. Then, I would go and re-wrap his burn, and we would just sit quietly drinking our coffee until the sun was all the way up. After that, I would get up and sit on the porch while he went and did whatever it was he did in the mornings until the rest of our ‘group’ woke up and joined us. It had settled into a nice routine, and it was about the only time of the day that I didn’t feel like ripping his head off.

I got up out of the bed and stumbled into the bathroom, doing my morning “stuff” and making sure I didn’t look like a hobo… Wait, why did I care how I looked? It was five-thirty in the morning… Oh well. I stepped gingerly down the steps and into the kitchen, seeing him sitting in the same chair as every morning with the first aid kit opened on the table and a hot cup of coffee waiting in my place as he sipped his own. I bit my bottom lip to hide a smile and sat down.

“Morning,” he mumbled. Wow, he actually spoke first… how weird.

“Morning,” I replied, peeling off his bandage and making sure to avoid hurting him in any way. As I worked, my mind analyzed the previous night’s dream, trying desperately to sift through the names in my head as to who the mystery lover was. All I knew was that he was wearing a red, sleeveless shirt and had an amazing singing voice. Bryan quirked an eyebrow at me and I sighed. “I just have a lot on my mind,” I said. He nodded. It was like he was afraid to talk to me because he thought he’d be too nice or friendly or something.

I finished cleaning and wrapping the burn, then put the kit back together and under the sink. I sat down to finish my coffee as usual, until we both heard a low growl coming from outside the house. We both looked at each other with wide eyes and my breath hitched in my throat as claws began to scratch along the front door. I slowly stood up and power-walked to the fridge, reaching behind it to find that the rifle was gone.

“Oh crap,” I muttered, my breathing quickening as Bryan’s eyes widened in the direction of the front door. I swiftly walked into the living room and grabbed the bat that was leaning by the old-fashioned fireplace, knowing very well that it probably wouldn’t be enough to hold off a hungry wolf. Bryan just followed me, a knife in his hand, which I also knew wouldn’t help much if the wolf jumped at him before he could knife it. We walked to the door and I kicked it fiercely. A loud bark sounded from the vicious creature outside and I hoped it had backed away as I opened the door. Now, you must be wondering why I would do this, and why we wouldn’t just stay in the house and wait it out. Well, the reasons for that are…

1. Wolves are very persistent, and it wouldn’t leave until it was satisfied.
2. If we hid, it would have clawed through the door eventually or broken through a window, seeing as this cabin wasn’t built as strongly as it should’ve been.
3. We had to make sure the other wolves would know not to mess with us. (if they knew one of them had been hurt or killed here, they would stay away.)
4. I wasn’t necessarily thinking very straight, my fears had taken over.

As soon as I opened the door, I started hitting the thing in the nose, again and again. I was yelling at it, for what reason I don’t know, and Bryan was trying to move around me to hit it with the knife. Suddenly, it grabbed the bat with it’s teeth and threw it away from us. I watched it in slow-motion, instantly feeling unprotected and backing into Bryan. We were both shaking as the wolf got ready to pounce.

“Move!” Hayley’s voice yelled at us. We both jumped out of the way and she aimed the rifle at the creature. She shot it just like that with a BANG, and I landed on the porch flooring. The wolf whined and ran off. Neither Hayley or I could kill an animal if we didn’t absolutely have to, so that’s why she shot him somewhere that would just scare him away.

“H-how did y-you…?” I trailed off, staring at a very angry looking Hayley. She hates being woken up early, unless it’s for the world’s greatest breakfast buffet that’s about to close if not used or something along those lines.

“I told you, I felt insecure being upstairs without protection, it was under the bed instead of behind the fridge. I’m going back to sleep,” she huffed, turning around and handing the rifle to Ronnie, whose mouth hung open in shock.

“Wow… thank god for Hayley…” I mumbled. I looked over to Bryan, who was getting up from his place on the other side of the porch where he had landed.

“Could you have been any more stupid about that, Jessi? Jesus,” he scoffed, storming into the house. Well, here comes another wonderful day.

---$$$---

We cleaned up the small trail of blood the wolf left behind, “we” being Max and I, and went back into the house. I felt bad that he had to help me with that, though I was very used to it after growing up with my Uncle Ben teaching me how to hunt, take care of myself, etc. Not that I agreed with pleasure hunting, I hated it, but my Uncle believed in knowing survival tactics. Max practically ran back into the house after I told him we were done cleaning up the marks of injury, squealing like a girl and washing his hands for about an hour in the kitchen sink. The others were laughing at him.

“Shut up, the only reason my new bestie Max had to help me with that was cuz you were all too sissy to do it instead. I wouldn’t be laughing if I was any of you!” I said, mock-glaring at them. Hayley stepped groggily down the stairs, plopping onto the couch and sighing. At this point, we were all sitting down, bored to death.

“Let me ask you two ladies a question,” Ronnie stated, breaking the boring silence.

“Hmm?” Hayley replied.

“Yeah, Ronnie?” I asked.

“What was your favorite hair style of each one of us?” He asked, gesturing to himself and the other three men in the room. How random is that?

“Why are you asking?”

“Well, we wanna know what we should do with our hair after we get back home,” Craig explained. I smiled hugely at the fact that those two were on okay terms now.

“Okay… Willy you wanna go?”

“Meh, it’s okay, you go first,” she assured me.

“Alright. Craig, your hair has kinda stayed the same, but I love it when your bangs come all the way across your forehead and when your layers are flipped just a tad. Uhm… yeah. Max, I absolutely adored your hair the way it was back in ’07, it just really framed your face well. Ronnie, I’d have to say your crazy, untamed hair from Situations absolutely must be the best look for you…” I answered, hoping to skip overStupid Jerk Bryan, but knowing Craig wouldn’t let me.

“Jess, be nice and tell Bryan, too,” Max scolded. Bryan rolled his eyes and refused to look in my direction.

“Fine… uhm… I liked your blonde hair the best. Actually, just like in Situations… that’s when it was it’s best. Happy now?” I replied. I looked down to my feet, hoping to avoid whatever facial expression he might’ve made. Craig smiled at me when I looked back up, still avoiding Bryan’s gaze.

Hayley told each of the guys what she thought, then we were back in the boring silence. Leila came down, finally having woken up. She climbed into Craig’s lap and he gave her a squeezy hug.

“I know what we can do!!” I yelled. They all jumped a little, except Hayley, who was of course used to my weird outbursts.

“Yes, Jessi?” Hayley asked.

“SOOOCCCCEERR!!!!!!!” I squealed. Max’s face lit up as did mine. “We are soooo calling Daisy and Shannon and Bambi, we’ll have a big game!!!”

“Are you serious!? You love soccer?!” Max screamed. We both jumped up and did the gangsta handshake, where you slide your hands and curl your fingers, then do a fist bump. Told you I had some gangster in me.

“DUH! Me and Daisy played on the school’s competitive team all high school!” I replied.

“This is why I love—I mean like- Daisy and why I’m best friends with you!” he said, hugging me. Hayley rolled her eyes and pulled out Uncle Ben’s phone, dialing Daisy’s number. We continued talking about our favorite teams, field positions, et cetera until Hayley looked at us confusedly and hung up the phone.

“What?”

“Uhm well Shannon said that Daisy went on a brief vacation, that she’ll be back in ten days, and that when she does return she’ll come stay here for a couple weeks. She apparently had some business to attend to. And uhm… Bambi said she’s on her way, she’ll be here in an hour,” Hayley told us. Max looked a mix of sadness, excitement, disappointment, and… was it love? Awwww!!! Max loves Daisy, too!! This is too cute to stand.

“Hey, just think in ten days, Daisy will be moving in with us for a couple weeks!” I reminded him. He smiled and nodded. “LET”S PLAY SOME SOCCER!!!” He yelled, and we all ran out to the small yard in front of the house. I grabbed my old soccer ball from the shed and threw it out the door, Craig catching it with his head. We played a small game until Bambi arrived, and the actual set started. The teams were Max, Me, Craig, Bambi versus Ronnie, Hayley, Bryan, and Leila. Everyone was very careful around Leila, but when Leila and Craig left the game so Craig could make her some lunch, we all got vicious.

“MAX! OVER HERE!” I yelled. He kicked the ball backwards to me and pulled it around, moving past Bryan and tripping him in the process. I SWEAR IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!!!

“UGH you motherflipping idiot!” he screamed at me. I let the ball go ahead of me as I whipped around and got ready for this.

“Are you serious!? You are such a bi-polar freak!”

“Hideous monster!”

“Stupid loser!”

“PMSing female dog!”

“Frikface!”

“Two-faced brainless wuss!”

“Oh no you did not! Get a life!”

“Why don’t you!?”

“Cuz at least I’m not brainless crapface like you!”

“Well at least I’m not a complete failure like you!” he screamed, silencing me. It hit me like a slap in the face, and I didn’t know why it hurt so bad. The other three were staring at us in annoyance. Craig came out and glared at the two of us from the front porch.

“Sorry, you guys,” I mumbled, looking at everyone but Bryan, and running into the house without another word. As soon as I slammed the bedroom door, the tears came out.

He was right… I failed at everything.

But Bryan was mean to me all the time… why did that hit me so hard?